Data-Driven Defense: Strengthening National Health Security with HPRAT

How IEM’s Healthcare Preparedness and Risk Assessment Tool (HPRAT) transforms biological threat modeling into actionable readiness. 

When a disease outbreak strikes, healthcare systems can be overwhelmed in days. The difference between a manageable surge and a catastrophic failure often comes down to one thing: preparation. For more than ten years, IEM has been at the forefront of national health security — delivering innovative medical preparedness modeling and planning solutions that protect patients, healthcare facilities, and the broader healthcare system from critical biological threats. 

Recognizing the Need: Practical Preparedness Insights for an Unpredictable Threat Landscape 

Healthcare and public health agencies, particularly those serving rural communities, need actionable, data-driven insights to prepare for biological threats before they become crises. Recognizing this need, IEM partnered with a federal agency to model the real-world effects of Category A and Category B biological agents on health systems, including threats such as anthrax, smallpox, and Salmonella. [1] 

The goal: develop advanced infectious disease modeling and simulation tools that give healthcare leaders the information they need to make confident, informed decisions, and build the preparedness infrastructure to act on them. 

The IEM Approach: Building a Smarter Preparedness Tool 

In collaboration with a federal agency, state governments, and healthcare organizations, IEM developed the Healthcare Preparedness and Risk Assessment Tool (HPRAT) — an interactive, easy-to-use platform designed to help healthcare leaders and policymakers better prepare for disease outbreaks and patient surge events. 

HPRAT was engineered to: 

• Evaluate hospital and healthcare network readiness to handle significant increases in patient demand 
• Identify critical gaps in patient surge capacity, staffing, essential services (power, water, communications), and medical supply availability 
• Assess the impact of targeted investments to enhance access to care, ensure service continuity, and maintain system stability under stress 

At the core of HPRAT are three peer-reviewed models that together provide a comprehensive picture of how healthcare systems perform when pushed to their limits:

Healthcare Preparedness (HCPM)

Gauging surge capacity and staffing limits. 

Critical Infrastructure (CIM)

Mapping the impact of power, water, and comms failures.

Supply Chain (SCM)

Tracking medical supply availability during a crisis.

The IEM Impact: Smarter Decisions, Stronger Health Systems 

HPRAT gave healthcare and public health leaders a standardized, evidence-based framework for evaluating preparedness, enabling consistent assessment across facilities, jurisdictions, and threat scenarios. 

Key outcomes of IEM’s work include: 

• Smarter Spending – Provided the evidence needed to prioritize investments where they save the most lives 
• Enhanced evaluation – Strengthened the agency’s ability to assess how interventions such as vaccines affect health system access and capacity 
• Outbreak simulation capabilities – Developed a smallpox global spread model that directly informed federal vaccine strategies 
• Standardized disease modeling – Created a common modeling framework for clear, cross-jurisdictional comparisons and more effective interagency collaboration 

By combining innovation, peer-reviewed science, and deep emergency management expertise, IEM helped transform how the federal government and its healthcare partners prepare for and respond to biological threats. 

Why Public Health Leaders Choose IEM for Public Health Programs 

• Proven track record – 10+ years of sustained collaboration on national health security modeling and preparedness planning 
• Peer-reviewed, evidence-based tools – Integrated models grounded in scientific rigor and validated for real-world application
• Stakeholder collaboration – Partnerships with federal, state, and healthcare organizations to reflect real operational needs  
• Actionable intelligence – Tools designed not just to model threats, but to drive decisions, improve efficiency, and enhance preparedness outcomes 
• End-to-end solutions – From threat modeling and gap analysis to investment strategy and countermeasure evaluation, IEM delivers sustainable, long-lasting preparedness solutions 

Advanced modeling. Evidence-based planning. A healthier, more resilient nation. 

Talk to Our Healthcare and Public Health Experts →

James Clark

Vice President of Homeland Security and Emergency Management

Email

References:

[1] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Category A, B, and C Biological Agents. https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/138996